{"id":184,"date":"2021-12-15T17:16:56","date_gmt":"2021-12-15T16:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homesandantiques.com\/?p=23186"},"modified":"2021-12-15T17:29:17","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T16:29:17","slug":"john-sutcliffes-creative-upcycled-edwardian-home","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/rss_feed\/john-sutcliffes-creative-upcycled-edwardian-home\/","title":{"rendered":"John Sutcliffe\u2019s creative, upcycled Edwardian home"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Janet Gleeson\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 15 December 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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A chance meeting in the pub led designer John Sutcliffe and his musician wife, Gabrielle, to the Edwardian semi-detached house in which they now live. \u2018We wanted to downsize from our former four-storey property, and we knew the person who lived here, so we agreed that he would move to the bungalow of his dreams and we would buy his house.\u2019<\/p>\n

One of the key attractions for the Sutcliffes was that very little had been done to the house since the Sixties. \u2018It was typical of its date: it had a front room with a bay window, a dining room behind, and then a back area with a kitchen, larder, scullery and downstairs cloakroom.<\/p>\n

Upstairs, there was a big front bedroom, two smaller bedrooms and a bathroom,\u2019 explains John, adding that the layout was familiar because, by a strange quirk of fate, when they first moved to Cambridge three decades earlier, they lived in the house on the other side of the party wall.<\/p>\n

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In the music room a collection of black and white prints and a screen made by John Sutcliffe are displayed against yellow walls. The red patterned curtains and sofa covered in a George Spencer fabric add to the rich effect.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

It took two years of renovations to transform the new house into the home we see today. Making the most of the available space downstairs was a top priority. \u2018We did what I rather disapprove of,\u2019 says John. \u2018We ripped the place apart.\u2019 Lifestyles have changed, he explains: \u2018We don\u2019t live with a maid who will come and knock on the parlour door and say, \u201cSupper\u2019s ready, Sir\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

And so they removed the corridor that ran the length of the house, along the party wall, opening up the rooms across the width of the house. Taking out the huge chimney breast that originally housed the range in the kitchen also made a huge difference, and the bricks this produced were used in the garden.<\/p>\n

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Removing the passage wall and a large chimney allowed John and Gabrielle to maximise space in the kitchen. John designed the table for a National Trust house in East Anglia. A curtain divides this space from the stone hall and doors leading to a scullery and cloakroom<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

When the major restructuring was done, the couple turned their attention to smaller details. John thought the internal doors with high lock rails were aesthetically unappealing. Turning them upside down seemed an obvious solution, but that in turn led to another visual anomaly because the bottom rail (now at the top) looked too wide and unwieldy. \u2018So we cut a channel in it to lighten and make sense of it.\u2019<\/p>\n

Keen upcyclers, the couple found uses for all the timber and bricks that they removed. \u2018It is a recycled house, and we also bought lots of bits in local auctions and from reclamation yards.\u2019<\/p>\n

The door leading to the garden is typical of their inventive use of old materials. \u2018It\u2019s a door from a reclamation yard near Cambridge. We cut out the top panels and inserted the coloured glass panel which we also bought locally.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Painted in a shade of blue-grey, the bathroom contrasts with the warm shades that predominate elsewhere. The print depicts a snake by Renos Loizou<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Old furniture was also cleverly reused. In the downstairs cloakroom, the \u2018thunderbox\u2019 lavatory was made from an old Victorian dining table. A Regency eagle crested mirror in the kitchen is a confection made by John, \u2018with an eagle that had dropped off something I found in a local auction\u2019, an old frame from John\u2019s childhood home, and a convex shop fitting mirror glass, \u2018one of those ones to stop shop lifting\u2019, he says.<\/p>\n

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